Disclaimer: the posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

SIR ALAN LASCELLES

Bottom left - Alan Lascelles, who became private secretary to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. It was the bisexual Prince of Wales (who later became the Duke of Windsor) who first made Alan Lascelles a private secretary.

Aged 11, Alan Lascelles, a relation of the Earls of Harewood, was attending a school called Durnford House.

He wrote to his sister:

"There are forty-four boys here... and there are no Jews which is a great blessing...

"Mr Pellatt (the owner of the school)... whacks you for anything...

"Mrs Pellatt... kisses all the boys before going to bed...

(It was Mrs Pellatt's habit to have one of the boys stroke her feet while she read to them.)

Aged 16, Alan Lascelles wrote in his diary:

"Eddy (a cousin) and I dressed up as female barbarians..."Eddy and I dressed up again as ladies from Harrogate and took in Uncle henry (the Earl of Harewood), which was a great triumph."

Aged 17, Alan Lascelles describes in his diary a day at Marlborough school:

"An African missionary preached a never-to-be-forgotten sermon; for eight and forty minutes he told amusing stories about naked nigger boys, which reduced all chapel to a state of suppressed apoplexy..."

The real Hitler?

Sir Alan Lascelles was King George VI's private secretary from 1943-52.

Lascelles, in his diaries, entitled King's Counsellor, wrote that, in June 1944, General Georges Catroux, of the Free French forces, had asked the British government's Alfred Duff Cooper "to see a certain French officer, urgently."

The diary entry for 21 June 1944 continues: "This man, who is a very big noise in the French intelligence service, told Duff that he had very reliable information that Hitler had fled from Berlin to a villa near Perpignan, where he is now hiding and waiting a favourable opportunity to slip across the Spanish frontier."

According to Lascelles, Germany talked of peace terms as early as 1943.

In his diary entry for 27 december 1943, Lascelles wrote: "Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen telegraphed yesterday from Ankara that Numan (Turkish Foreign Minister) had told him ... that the German Minister in Bucharest had called (in uniform) on the Romanian Foreign Minister, and told him Germany would accept peace on the following terms: they would surrender fleet, submarines, merchant fleet, air force, disarm completely, evacuate all occupied territory, undertake never to ask for colonies, and leave Europe to be organised according to the wishes of the Allies.

"The only condition they asked for is economic freedom for Germany, but this is to be arranged as found suitable by the Allies."